Jaguar, Cuts You Up:Coda

I find you in the morning...

after dreams of distant signs

You pour yourself over me

like the sun through the blinds

You lift me up and get me out

Keep me walking but never shout

"Hold the secret close", I hear you say

The heart of the Universe and Jaguar finds himself on the boundary edge of sleep. Dimly aware that he was lying on stone, blood warm from his body heat. Sun beats down making his skin tingle from the small needles of light. It feels good. The wind blows gently, caressing him, whispering in his ear.

“Lover, awake”

His eyes flick open, blinking rapidly against the light. Small tears from in the corners. Shivering slightly he draws in a deep breath. The air is warm, carrying with it the dusty tastes of terra cotta, iron, sand. There is moisture in the air, a mineral tang heavy in his nostrils. But something is missing.

You know the way it throws about.

It takes you in and spits you out

It spits you out when you desire

To conquer it, to feel you're higher

To follow it you must be clean,

With mistakes that you do mean

Move the heart, switch the pace

Look for what seems out of place

The Other is gone. A quick flip of the head confirms it. Jaguar is alone on the rock next to the pool. He sits up quickly, the muscles in his back and legs protesting. The faint soreness in them brings a smile to his lips, which he strokes absent mindedly, sitting in the sun. His bottom lip is tender and sore. Running a thumb across it, rasping slightly with the grains of sand stuck to his skin, he is not surprised to see a small crimson smear highlighting the swirls of his skin. Licking his lips, he can taste the salty metal of blood, seeping from small wounds in the skin. His pulse picks up, eyes dilating. Jaguar smiles to light up the world.

Yeah on and on it goes,
calling like a distant wind
Through the zero hour we'll walk...
cut the thick and break the thin
No sound to break, no moment clear
When all the doubts are crystal clear
Crashing hard into the secret wind

She was here. There is no doubt now in Jaguar’s heart. The ache in his muscles, the wounds in his lip. His back and shoulders burned slightly, Jaguar guessed there were some scratches. Bemusedly, he realizes that he is completely naked. His skin, rough and skeined with scratches, small angry red tracks from rock and…passions…was clean and fairly glowed in the crystalline light of the desert. A booming laugh erupts from his chest. Yes, yes, he remembers the water, and her embrace, liquid warmth dissolving the boundaries between their skins. A powerful surge of memory caused him to gasp and lower his head, black hair hanging over his face like a veil. To his surprise, a single tear seeped from his eyes and dripped down to be absorbed by the hot dryness of the rock. Such was the power of joy.

You know the way it twists and turns

Changing colour, spinning yarns

You know the way it leaves you dry

It cuts you up, it takes you high

You know the way it's painted gold

Is it honey? Is it gold?

Jaguar sat quiet, stonelike, meditating in the sun. The day was heating up, and he felt the urge to move, to stretch, to run. He rotated onto his knees, hands splayed out on the rock in front of him. He found himself staring down into the pool that was the site of his recent consummation. The dark quicksilver surface rippled languidly in the breeze.

A pair of luminous black eyes peering back at him through the distortion of the aqueous mirror. A face he almost didn’t recognize. Jaguar considered this unsettling image. Who was it? This was not the creature he knew.

You know the way it throws about.

It takes you in and spits you out

It spits you out when you desire

To conquer it, to feel you're higher

To follow it you must be clean,

With mistakes that you do mean

Move the heart, switch the pace

Look for what seems out of place

A hawk screamed in the warm distance. Jaguar jerked his head up sharply, startled by the metallic screech. He could see the bird, circling in the distance, and a small smile touched his lips as he considered his kinship with the feathered hunter. Circling, looking, hunting: a cosmic tarantella defining the parameters of life. He grunted in satisfaction and returned his gaze to the water. He knew now the difference, he could see it was the eyes.

No longer were the eyes mirrors of a lost soul, a being ground down from years of entrapment. The eyes were sharp, relaxed and no longer carried the trapped spirit of a life lived in fear. Jaguar smiled, the smile turning into a growl, turning into a roar. He raised his head and arms to the Sun and bellowed. Scared, the nearby coyote and hares alit swiftly through the brush.

The ghosts were gone, Jaguar knew. His heart was expanding, for all to see through the polished diamonds of his eyes.

Standing, searching the desert, he saw no trace of the Other, except for a line of footprints leading off into the distance. The prints were beginning to blur as the wind blew sand into the hollows. Jaguar stared along the line to the horizon, sniffing the wind. They were in the opposite direction from where he had come. Once, he thought he caught her scent, and considered following after, but quickly decided no, it was time to leave. He leapt off the rock and into the hot sand, loping steadily towards the cliffs in the distance, teeth bared into the wind.

Huntress and hunted, they would find each other, just like the sun and the moon.

And now I find the special kind

You, yourself, like sun through blinds
You lift me up and get me out…


(Italicized paragraphs are lyrics from “Cuts You Up” by Peter Murphy, from the album Deep)

This series would not have been possible without Teri, a.k.a ‘Artemis’. The fire is lit.